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WALKING WITH GOD: 



THE LIFE HID WITH CHRIST. 



BY 



SAMUEL IREN^US PRIME, 

AUTHOR OF "THE POWER OF PRAYER," ETC. 









NEW YORK: 
ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH AND CO., 

770 Broadway, Cor. Ninth Street. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by 

Anson D. F. Randolph and Company. 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



Tan Ljera] 

OP CoNGkfisS 



LC Control Number 




tmp96 027955 



KiviSKSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: 

ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED BY 

H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

I. How God dwells in us, and we in God 3 

II. HOW TO LIVE WITH GOD . . . 12 

III. A Life hid with Christ in God . 22 

IV. How to see God . . . . ... 32 

V. Men who have walked with God . 41 

VI. Thinking of God . .. . . 51 

VII. Communion with God . . . .60 

VIII. Panting after God .... 70 

IX. Peace in God . ... . .80 

X. Sympathy with Christ ... 89 



WALKING WITH GOD. 



CHAPTER I. 

HOW GOD DWELLS IN US, AND WE IN GOD. 

IT will take but a few minutes to 
read the three letters of the Apostle 
John. Read them attentively, and with 
prayer. More than any other of the dis- 
ciples he had the spirit and temper of 
the Master. It was John who leaned 
upon the bosom of Jesus, and he was 
often called the disciple whom Jesus 
loved. This beloved and loving disciple 
condenses all the attributes of the infi- 
nite God into that one word love ; and 
when he has thus embodied the wisdom, 
power, and goodness of God in -this ex- 
pression, he adds : " And he that dwell- 



4 WALKING WITH GOD. 

eth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in 
him. There is no fear in love, but per- 
fect love casteth out fear, because fear 
hath torment. He that feareth is not 
made perfect in love." In those words 
you have the substance of all divine 
philosophy and practical Christianity. 
God is a Spirit, filling immensity with 
his essential presence, pervading all 
things ; so that no part of space is 
where God is not. They who are in 
harmony with Him are happy, as He is 
infinitely happy. "No man," saith St. 
John, " hath seen God at any time." 
And then he adds in the same connec- 
tion, the next words indeed, " If we love 
one another, God dwelleth in us, and 
his love is perfected in us." God loved 
us, and gave his Son to be a propitiation 
for our sins. And we know that we dwell 
in Him and He in us, because He hath 
given us of his Spirit. Thus the Fa- 
ther's love, the Son's sacrifice, and the 



WALKING WITH GOD. 5 

Spirit's indwelling, complete the work of 
uniting us to God ; so that we are one 
with Him, He in us and we in Him, by 
love. "And we know that the Son of 
God is come, and hath given us an under- 
standing, that we may know Him that is 
true, and we are in Him that is true, 
even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is 
the true God and eternal life/' 

In this divine wisdom is the source of 
all true joy and peace, and the beginning 
of eternal good. The life that we led in 
time past, when we wrought the will of 
the flesh, has perished ; and the life that 
we now live is by faith on the Son of 
God. We now love God and man, and 
that brings us into divine harmony with 
the Infinite and with all good that is in 
our fellow-men. And as perfect love 
casteth out fear, and fear hath torment, 
this love secures and begets peace of 
conscience and joy in God, that fill the 
soul with foretastes of future glory. It 



6 WALKING WITH GOD. 

is not ideal, it is actual. This is not a 
vague, indefinite, mystical rhapsody or 
ecstasy. It is the calm content of the 
soul in unison with infinite love. It 
dwells in Him and is at home there, as 
John the beloved was when he lay in the 
bosom of his Lord. 

Does such enjoyment unfit us for the 
daily duties of the busy world that de- 
mands our thought and toil ? So far 
from such an influence, it impels us to 
diligence in business as we are fervent 
in spirit. It makes us active and faith- 
ful in the few or the many things that 
are committed to our care, and so much 
the more as we are stewards of Him 
whom we love and serve. What an im- 
pulse and fervor would be imparted to 
all the duties of life if we bought and 
sold, if we ploughed and sowed, if we 
visited and entertained, if we worked 
and played, under the constant power of 
this constraining love ! Thou shalt love 



WALKING WITH GOD. J 

the Lord thy God with all thy heart, etc., 
and thy neighbor as thyself. On these 
two commands hang all the Law and the 
Gospel. 

Whatsoever is less than this is less 
than duty and less than privilege. What- 
ever is more than this is inconceivable, 
for God is love, and in Him all fullness 
dwells. 

We may be happy in this assurance, 
if we love God and our brother, that we 
are born of God and are in Him. This 
will stand the test of the death-bed. It 
will survive the flood of the cold river. 
And the fires of the future have no ter- 
ror for a soul thus in God. " Herein is 
our love made perfect, that we may have 
boldness in the day of judgment : be- 
cause as He is, so are we in this world." 

" This is the victory that overcometh 
the world, even our faith." We know 
that God is in us, as we are in Him, and 
that sin hath no more dominion over our 



8 WALKING WITH GOD. 

spirits. Our desires are after those 
things that we love : and if we love God 
and our brother we shall desire nothing, 
and so do nothing, but fti harmony with 
love, which unites our will with the will 
of God. Then our joy is full. We may 
rest in this assurance, that where God is 
we are also ; because we have been de- 
livered from the power of sin, and re- 
newed in the image of Him who loved 
us and gave Himself for us. It is the 
nature of love to grow by that it feeds 
upon. We dwell in Him and receive of 
his fullness day by day, rising into 
higher and clearer regions of spiritual 
enjoyment, as the earthly and sensual 
are purified out of us by the refining 
power of divine grace. We may and 
will go on in the race and toil and tur- 
moil of life, if its cares and burdens are 
laid upon us ; but while we are in the 
world, we are not of the world. We do 
our work, as faithful servants whom the 



WALKING WITH GOD. 9 

Lord would 'find so doing when He 
comes. But we love not the world, nor 
the things that are in it. When riches 
increase, we will not set our hearts on 
them. The fashion of this world passeth 
away, and we have nothing here that 
abideth forever. Our treasure is in 
heaven, and our hearts are there also. 
Even the trials and troubles of this mor- 
tal life are not to cast us down and' de- 
stroy us. They are rather to wean us 
away. They turn us toward Him whose 
bosom is heaven, and in whom we have 
rest and peace. 

This is the fruit of union with God, 
spirit with spirit, the soul of man with 
the soul of the Universal Father, the re- 
sult of love. God is love. If we are 
like Him, we shall also be love. And 
just in the degree and proportion that 
we love God and our brother, — that is, 
God and man, — as we overcome the 
selfishness of the natural heart, and go 



IO WALKING WITH GOD. 

out after that which is for the honor of 
God and the good of others ; in that 
degree and proportion we are in har- 
mony with the holiness of God, and our 
souls are made one with Him. There- 
fore, there is a real apprehensible sense 
in which we become partakers of the 
divine nature. This is the meaning of 
it. We are like Him, as we love Him 
and our brother. 

Sin hath no more dominion over us. 
All that we do is prompted by love, and 
love worketh no ill to his neighbor. If 
the motive is good, and the act fitted to 
make our brother, sister, or friend happy, 
it is well pleasing to God, who is Him- 
self infinitely happy in perfect love. 



If only I have Thee, 

If only mine Thou art, 

And to the grave 

Thy power to save 

Upholds my faithful heart, — 

Naught can then my soul annoy, 

Lost in worship, love, and joy. 



WALKING WITH GOD. 1 1 

If only I have Thee, 

I gladly all forsake. 

To follow on 

Where Thou hast gone, 

My pilgrim staff I take ; 

Leaving other men to stray 

In the bright, broad, crowded way. 

If only I have Thee, 

If only Thou art near, 

In sweet repose 

My eyes shall close, 

Nor Death's dark shadow fear ; 

And thy heart's flood through my breast, 

Gently charm my soul to rest. 

If only I have Thee, 

Then all the world is mine ; 

Like those who gaze 

Upon the ways 

That from thy glory shine, 

Rapt in holy thought of Thee, 

Earth can have no gloom for me. 

Where only I have Thee, 

There is my Fatherland ; 

For everywhere 

The gifts I share 

From thy wide-spreading hand ; 

And in all my human kind, 

Long-lost brothers dear I find. — Novalis. 



CHAPTER II. 

HOW TO LIVE WITH GOD. 

YOU are in the pursuit of the " higher 
life," the life that is hid with Christ 
in God ; the life that now is, but so re- 
fined and exalted, so purified by faith and 
love, that it becomes a sweet foretaste 
and anticipation of the life that is to 
come. 

You ask if this sort of expectation, 
longing, seeking, and striving, is not part 
of the mysticism, quietism, and pietism 
of other ages, and utterly incompatible 
with the activities and abounding duties 
that press upon the mind and soul of the 
modern saint. You refer to the mystics, 
who profess a pure and simple life of 
worship, abstract devotion, calm, holy 
contemplation, and thus finding immedi- 



WALKING WITH GOD. 1 3 

ate intercourse with God, maintain a re- 
ligious life, a secret communion with the 
unseen and eternal, and grow daily in 
the knowledge and love of divine things, 
so that they are transformed into the 
image of Him who is invisible. Madame 
Guyon was one of this kind of Christians. 
There is much in Fenelon's writings to 
encourage it. Religious asceticism fos- 
ters the same tendency. There are or- 
ders in the Romish Church that cherish 
it, and as the Ritualist in the Church of 
England approaches the Church of Rome, 
he is apt to fall into this way of thinking 
and feeling, mistaking it for religion. 

I would not repress one aspiration of 
your soul after simple holiness, holiness 
in the abstract, holiness apart from the 
service that holiness impels to, and with- 
out which, in my view, true holiness is 
impossible. Yes ; be holy as God is 
holy. Live above the world while you 
are in it. Meditate, pray. Read the 



14 WALKING WITH GOD. 

lives of saints. Love and live for love. 
With all my heart I say with the pious 
Rutherford, — 

" O, if this world knew the excellency, 
sweetness, and beauty of that high and 
lofty One, that fairest among the sons of 
men, verily they would see that if their 
love were bigger than ten heavens, — all 
in circles beyond each other, — it were 
all too little for Christ our Lord. I hope 
that your choice will not repent you 
when life shall come to that twilight be- 
tween time and eternity, and you shall 
see the utmost border of time, and shall 
draw the curtain and look into eternity, 
and shall one day see God take the 
heavens in his hands and fold them to- 
gether like an old garment, and set on 
fire this clay part of the creation of God, 
and consume away into smoke and ashes 
the idle hope of poor fools who think 
there is not a better country than this 
low region of dying clay." 



WALKING WITH GOD. 1 5 

You cannot see too much of the loveli- 
ness of Christ our Lord, the chief among 
ten thousand. Meditation on Him day 
and night is sweet. He giveth songs in 
the night. And in hours of solitude, sick- 
ness, pain, weariness, heaviness, when 
the soul needs repose, and longs for com- 
fort, peace, and strength, — then and al- 
ways He is the soul's bright Morning 
Star. Adopt Him into your soul as the 
One altogether lovely. And so you shall 
find your exceeding great reward, peace 
and joy in Him, the assurance of hope, 
and the brightness of the Father's glory 
manifested unto you in the face of his 
Son. This is the privilege of every be- 
liever. It is the birthright of every soul 
that is born of God. Doubts, fears, de- 
spondencies are wrong, dishonoring Him 
who has brought you out of darkness 
into marvelous light. Rejoice in the 
Lord always, and again I say rejoice. 

For this is the will of Him who hath 
2 



1 6 WALKING WITH GOD. 

slain every enemy of your peace, and 
brought life and immortality to your soul. 
To be always in the light of the divine 
countenance is the privilege of the be- 
liever. 

You tell me that the age and the 
Church make such demands upon your 
time and thought, you have scarce a 
chance for the cultivation of personal 
holiness ; you are too busy to think, 
meditation is out of the question, and 
time for prayer is rescued with a struggle 
from the active duties of an absorbing 
life. I have a lively sense of your ex- 
perience. I am tempted in all those 
points like as you are. And it is well to 
remember that our Blessed Lord, when 
He walked this earth for our salvation, 
left behind not only the merits of his 
final sacrifice as He offered up his life 
for our redemption, but also that beauti- 
ful life of his which remains for our 
example. He went about doing good. 



WALKING WITH GOD, 



17 



It cannot be that his stirring, moving, 
restless habits interfered with his habit- 
ual intercourse with God the Father. 
It was not needful for his personal piety 
and daily food of soul that He should go 
to the mountain-top, or the garden, or 
the wilderness, to spend long solitary 
hours in prayer. He sought retirement 
when his wants impelled Him to such 
retreats. But his life was with his 
fellow-men. He was active, laborious, 
untiring in his efforts to do the work 
He came to do. And why, dear friend, 
should not those who love Christ make 
Him the model of their own lives, and 
like Him be always at work, doing? The 
tendency of our times is not towards 
doing too much for Christ, but towards 
getting others to do work in our stead. 
Christ wrought out his life and died for 
us. It is not like Him for us to be con- 
tent with service paid for by our money. 
That is well, but there is something more 



1 8 WALKING WITH GOD. 

and better. It is actual, personal labor, 
labor that requires self-denial and. sacri- 
fice, and sometimes humiliation and often 
privation ; labor that compels us to go 
about as Jesus did, when He became 
weary with walking, and even then kept 
on preaching to a solitary sinner, who 
received the words of eternal life from 
his lips ! 

Thorwaldsen, that wonderful Danish 
sculptor, whose dust lies in Copenhagen, 
surrounded by models of his mighty art, 
was never satisfied with any of his works, 
till he had made a model for his statue 
of Christ. He had had thoughts of 
heroes and pagan deities, and the world 
has admired them as beyond its concep- 
tions of ideal greatness. But he was 
toiling after something better, and often, 
in the weary disappointment of a great 
soul unsatisfied, he had said, " It is high, 
I cannot attain unto it." And when he 
had made his idea of Christ manifest and 



WALKING WITH GOD. 



19 



immortal in marble, he said, " I shall 
never do anything great again." To 
have realized in art one's conception of 
Jesus, ought to satisfy the longings of 
the greatest human soul. 

And who of us has dreamed of being 
like Him yet ? We are not striving to 
produce his image in marble ; that were 
great. We are longing to have Him 
formed in us, to become like Him, to be 
changed into his image, so that we may 
be Christians as he was Christ. And this 
is not to be by going into a cloister, or a 
bed-chamber, or a boudoir, or a cell, and 
shutting the windows and door, and liv- 
ing alone with Jesus. He is not fond of 
such retreats. With the sick or wounded 
in body, He would dwell anywhere. But 
He knows the difference between lazi- 
ness and illness. He does not love to 
be confined to such lodgings, unless his 
people are suffering, and praying for his 
presence and help. The hearts of the 



20 WALKING WITH GOD. 

two disciples burned within them when 
the unknown Jesus talked with them as 
they were walking. And He made 
Himself known unto them while they 
were eating bread. 

All this means, dear friend, that you 
shall grow in grace, love, and knowledge 
of Christ our Lord by doing his will, 
walking in his footsteps, living as He 
lived, praying without ceasing, always 
abounding in the work of the Lord ; 
having something to do, and doing it 
with a will, forasmuch as you know that 
your labor is not in vain in the Lord. 
You have time to eat, for the life of the 
body demands that you eat ; but to eat 
all the time is not for the health of 
the body. You have time to meditate ; 
but to meditate all the time, is not for 
the health of the soul. And to be a 
well-developed, symmetrical, and useful 
Christian, you will bring into exercise 
and keep employed in the active, daily, 



WALKING WJTH GOD. 21 

constant duties of the Christian life, all 
the faculties of the redeemed soul. 



Hold on, my heart, in thy believing ! 

The steadfast only wins the crown. 
He who, when stormy waves are heaving, 

Parts with his anchor, shall go down. 
But he who Jesus holds through all,. 
Shall stand, though heaven and earth shall fall. 

Hold in thy murmurs, Heaven arraigning, 
The patient see God's loving face ; 

Who bear their burdens uncomplaining, 
'Tis they that win the Father's grace. 

He wounds himself who bears the rod, 

And sets himself to fight with God. 

Hold out ! There comes an end to sorrow ; 

Hope from the dust shall conquering rise ; 
The storm foretells a sunnier morrow ; 

The Cross points on to Paradise. 
The Father reigneth ; cease all doubt ; 
Hold on, my heart, hold in, hold out ! 



CHAPTER III. 

A LIFE HID WITH CHRIST IN GOD. 

THE Rotunda of the Capitol at 
Washington is adorned with his- 
toric pictures by great painters. One 
of them has a story which the artist told 
me one summer evening on the Hudson. 
The picture is the Embarkation of the 
Pilgrim Fathers. The artist is Wier. 
He wars a skeptic, an utter unbeliever in 
Christianity, when he selected his theme. 
A subject related to American history 
was required, and he made choice of this 
without a thought of its religious associa- 
tions. Having made the drawing upon 
the wide-stretched canvas, he began to 
lay on the colors. There was Robinson 
on his knees, and Miles Standish in his 
armor, and Rose in her beauty and glory, 



WALKING WITH GOD. 23 

and the group of men and women ! Well, 
what for were they there ? He perceived, 
as they lay in his mind yet uncreated, 
that they were animated by some prin- 
ciple of which he himself had no con- 
sciousness. He could not paint what 
he could not comprehend. He knew 
nothing more of the sentiment of those 
pilgrims than does a deaf man of the 
concord of sweet sounds. He studied 
their times, their lives, their deeds, their 
sacrifices, their purposes, and hopes. 
And as he studied, the truth gradually 
stole into his own soul that they were of 
a race to which he did not belong. They 
had a life within them he had never lived. 
They were in a world of which he knew 
less than he did of the fixed stars. Mr. 
Wier told me that he studied the subject 
till he became a Christian : and then he 
did that work, the great work of his life. 
He found the secret spring of all their 
action was their religion. Their life was 



24 WALKING WITH GOD. 

hid with Christ in God. Home, ease, 
wealth, country, — what was all this to 
them who sought freedom to live for 
Christ : to follow Him, to enjoy their 
union with Him, to have a life hid with 
Him in God. 

If you will study the lives of good, 
brave men who have walked the path of 
duty fearlessly and faithfully, and have 
suffered as they travelled, their feet 
bleeding as they went ; if you will take 
the " Book of Martyrs " and observe how 
calmly they have bowed their heads to 
the axe, or how joyously they embraced 
the stake, if they must go up to glory in 
flames, or — what is far harder to be en- 
dured than fagot or scaffold — if you 
have seen simple-hearted, humble, patient 
good men, leading lives of self-denial and 
reproach, and submitting to loss of place, 
and distinction, and comfort, taking joy- 
fully the spoiling of their goods, or pre- 
ferring the service of God to the pleas- 



WALKING WITH GOD. 2$ 

ures and honors of the world, you have 
found in them the men whose lives are 
hid with Christ in God. 

One of the most distinguished of 
American statesmen, who had aspired to 
the highest seat, but died without attain- 
ing it, said to me in his dying chamber 
that this union with God, through Christ, 
was the greatest and only desire of his 
heart. 

It is easier for us who are not great to 
understand it and enjoy it, than for men 
who have the weight of empires on their 
hearts. Many of the sweetest and deep- 
est mysteries of life in God are hid from 
the great and wise, but revealed to such 
babes in the Gospel as you and I. They 
stand up and refuse to learn. Babes lie 
on the bosom of love, and drink it in 
from the fountain of life itself. Babes 
get the sincere milk of truth, and grow 
thereby. Just as the branch draws its 
life from the trunk and the root, so the 



26 WALKING WITH GOD. 

soul, joined by love to Christ, partakes 
of this life, grows into Him and becomes 
one with Him. " And of his fullness," 
said our favorite teacher, " have we re- 
ceived grace for grace." Each grace that 
goes to make up the fullness of Christ's 
life, comes to the soul in union with Him. 
" If any man be in Christ he is a new 
creature." The life that he once lived 
has passed away. " For ye are dead, and 
your life is hid with Christ in God." 

The fruit of this union is found in 
the soul's daily and delicious experience 
of all that is meant by the wonderful 
prayer, " that Christ may dwell in your 
hearts by faith ; that ye, being rooted 
and grounded in love, may be able to 
comprehend with all saints what is 
the breadth, and length, and depth, and 
height, and to know the love of Christ" 
(mark the paradox), "which passeth 
knowledge, that ye might be filled with 
all the fullness of God ! " 



WALKING WITH GOD. 2J 

It strikes me that those are the most 
wonderful of all the wonders of God's 
words to man : that we, sinful creatures, 
worms and worse, for they are not sin- 
ful, but worms compared with Him who 
holds worlds infinite in his hand, — that 
we may be filled with all the fullness 
of God. I break right down under the 
thought of it. And then I get the beauty 
and glory of it. The soul, by virtue of 
this union with God, has the divine life 
in it. Rising above the fears and fas- 
cinations of sin, growing into the image 
of Him whose new life is now the soul's 
life, it becomes absorbed in the pursuit 
and the enjoyment of something higher 
and better than it ever tasted or sought 
before. The sources of pleasure from 
which the soul drank before are not cut 
off: but those sources are themselves 
purified, and living water springs up 
even in a desert. Love, friends, letters, 
music, art, are not less to the soul in 



28 WALKING WITH GOD. 

Christ than they were when the eye and 
ear and heart had not been anointed. 
They are all loved more, enjoyed more, 
because " All things are yours, and ye 
are Christ's, and Christ is God's." The 
senses ministered in sin to that which 
was sensual : now the same senses are 
the servants of God, and all the members 
instruments of righteousness. The joy 
of the believer in all the delights they 
yield, is the joy of a soul whose life is hid 
with Christ in God. As a worm that 
lies dead in a noisome cell bursts its 
prison, and spreads its golden wings and 
flies into the air, a thing of life and 
beauty, so the soul, that was dead in sin, 
undergoes the mysterious transformation 
of renewing grace, becomes at once a 
new creature, spreads its wings, and is 
glad in the atmosphere of a fresh exist- 
ence, a higher life, a purer, better, hap- 
pier being. 

An unbelieving friend may smile at 



WALKING WITH GOD. 29 

this, as a mild phase of religious rhap- 
sody. But he does not know anything 
about it. He is all unconscious of the 
secret pleasure of the soul in Christ. 
" I have meat to eat," said the Master, 
" that ye know not of." " I have joy," 
says the believer, " that the world does 
not understand." There's not one joy 
the world can give, that is not mine and 
sweetened too ; or else, in the room of it, 
Christ, in whom my life is hid, gives me 
something better far. 



In thy service will I ever, 

Jesus, my Redeemer, stay ; 
Nothing me from Thee shall sever, 

Gladly would I go thy way. 
Life in me thy life produces, 

And gives vigor to my heart, 
As the vine doth living juices 

To the purple grape impart. 

Could I be in other places 
Half so happy as with Thee, 

Who so many gifts and graces 
Hast Thyself prepared for me ? 



30 WALKING WITH GOD. 

No place could be half so fitted 
To impart true joy, I ween, 

Since to Thee, O Lord ! committed, 
Power in heaven and earth hath been. 

Where shall I find such a Master, 

Who hath done my soul such good, 
And retrieved the great disaster 

Sin first caused, by his own blood ? 
Is not He my rightful owner, 

Who for me his own life gave ? 
Were it not a foul dishonor 

Not to love Him to the grave ? 

Yes, Lord Jesus, I am ever 

Thine in sorrow and in joy ; 
Death the union shall not sever, 

Nor eternity destroy. 
I am waiting, yea, and sighing 

For my summons to depart ; 
He is best prepared for dying, 

Who in life is thine in heart. 

Let thy light on me be shining 

When the day is almost gone, 
When the evening is declining, 

And the night is drawing on : 
Bless me, O my Saviour ! laying 

Thy hands on my weary head ; 
" Here thy day is ended," saying, 

" Yonder live the faithful dead." 



WALKING WITH GOD. 3 I 

Stay beside me, when the stillness 

And the icy touch of death 
Fills my trembling soul with chillness, 

Like the morning's frosty breath ; 
As my failing eyes grow dimmer, 

Let my spirit grow more bright, 
As I see the first faint glimmer 

Of the everlasting light. — S pitta. 
3 



CHAPTER IV. 

HOW TO SEE GOD. 

I WAS in company with some pupils 
of the Institution for the Blind, when 
they were speaking of their pleasure in 
seeing the ordinance of baptism in the 
church they had recently attended. They 
had, in fact, seen nothing at all : their 
eyes were darkened that they could not 
see, but they enjoyed the sacrament, and 
spoke of it as if it were as palpable to 
their sense of sight as to mine. 

Mr. Milburn, the blind preacher, is 
endowed with an exquisite sense of the 
beautiful in nature and art, and one day 
I asked if it made any difference to him, 
in his blindness, whether objects of 
beauty were about him or not. " All the 
difference in the world," he said ; for he 



WALKING WITH GOD. 33 

found gratification in that which others 
enjoyed, and a feeling of pleasure, per- 
haps keener than we experience whose 
eyes are opened, was his in the atmos- 
phere of the lovely. 

In Italy, I met an English gentleman 
of wealth and high intellectual culture, 
totally blind, travelling for pleasure, and 
writing a book on art ! He had two 
companions, who with him visited the 
galleries and churches and homes of the 
beautiful in beautiful Italy, and he was 
enjoying everything, perhaps more than 
they who were eyes to the blind. 

The inner sense of these sightless seers 
had been educated into harmony with 
the principles of beauty in the world 
about them. They were in sympathy 
with the perfect in nature and art. They 
would be thrilled by standing in the pres- 
ence of the Apollo of the Vatican ; and 
to touch a production of Raphael, to feel 
of a work of genius, would be a joy like 



34 WALKING WITH GOD. 

to that which exquisite music sends 
through the soul. To see beauty, the 
soul must come into contact with it, and 
the joy is complete. 

And when the Lord of glory was teach- 
ing the multitude on the mount, and 
those blessed lips, which spake as man 
never spake, were opened to drop words 
of infinite wisdom, He said, "Blessed are 
the pure in heart, for they shall see God." 
To see God is to enjoy God. The pious 
patriarch said, " In my flesh shall I see 
God." He had faith to believe the time 
was coming when he would have face to 
face communion with God, as friend with 
friend. 

There is more .in seeing God, than in 
being permitted to stand or to kneel in 
the blaze of infinite glory and gaze upon 
its excessive brightness with dazzled 
eyes. The blessedness promised to the 
pure in heart comprehends and confers 
the enjoyment of that wonderful trans- 



WALKING WITH GOD. 35 

formation from darkness into light inac- 
cessible. It brings. a prisoner out of a 
dungeon where no ray of sunshine glad- 
dened his perpetual midnight, and ushers 
him all at once into the liberty and glory 
of the children of the King, who walk in 
white raiment and dwell in heavenly 
places, and sit on thrones with angels. 
To see God is to enjoy God. Eye hath 
not seen Him. Ear hath not heard what 
it is, but the blind shall see Him. These 
dull senses of ours, so often tortured now 
with pain, so stupid even in the midst 
of wonderful revelations of God in the 
world around us, — the earth and sea 
and stars, — these same senses may be 
so refined and purified as to be the ave- 
nues of joy that as yet no mind has con- 
ceived. And that would not be heaven. 
It would be the vestibule, not the temple. 
The greatest of our poets has said, if 
we were suddenly divested of our mor- 
tality, we should find ourselves in the 



2,6 WALKING WITH GOD. 

midst of a mighty theatre, filled with 
spectators in successive galleries reach- 
ing to the skies, all looking on the scenes 
in which we are now acting our part, 
unconscious of the cloud of witnesses 
that surround us. It is better to be im- 
pressed and governed by the thought 
that if we were suddenly delivered from 
the cloud of sin, we should be instantly 
in the presence of the Infinite, beholding 
his glory. This would be heaven. This 
is heaven. 

There is a place — I know there is, 
for Jesus said He was going to make it 
ready for them who love Him — there is 
a place where the Father dwells in the 
midst of uncreated light, Himself the 
Light ; where his temple and his throne 
are, as they are not anywhere else 
in the universe, filled by his essential 
presence. But I am persuaded, also, 
that if I should take the wings of the 
morning and ascend into the heavens, 



WALKING WITH GOD. 



37 



anywhere in the wide realms of bound- 
less space — beyond the rim of this vast 
system of worlds so wide away from our 
little planet, that shining orbs more 
lustrous than the sun have not yet 
reached us with their light, though trav- 
elling hither from creation's morn till 
now — if anywhere a pilgrim,, footsore or 
on weary wing, I should be made pure in 
heart, then and there, in the midst of 
angel songs of gladness, I should see 
God! 

To see God is to enjoy God. We be- 
come like to that which we love. There 
is a wonderful transforming power in 
love. We grow into the image — " We 
all with open face, beholding as in a glass 
the glory of the Lord, are changed into 
the same image, from glory to glory, even 
as by the Spirit of the Lord." We shall 
be like Him, for we shall see Him as He 
is ! This is the way, the truth, and the 
life. We want to be like Him, and we 



38 WALKING WITH GOD. 

want to see Him, and seeing Him is to 
make us like Him. And the way to be 
like Him and to see Him, is to be pure 
in heart. 

And this is just the hardest and lowli- 
est lesson to learn in the Christian life. 
It cometh not but by prayer and fasting ; 
but it may come, and we lose our bless- 
ing if we do not get the victory. " To 
him that overcometh," saith the Spirit, 
"will I give a white stone, and in the 
stone a new name written, which no man 
knoweth saving he that receiveth it." 
The battle is to be fought in secret, and 
the victory is not to be marked by any 
other monument than this white stone, 
pure, and inscribed with the name of 
the purified. Deeds are nothing here. 
" Not of works, lest any man should 
boast." He who opened his heart to 
give his blood for us, He has done the 
work, has redeemed us unto Himself, 
that He might present us unto his 



WALKING WITH GOD. 



39 



Father, not having spot or wrinkle or 
any such thing. This is a heart exer- 
cise, an internal experience. The world 
knoweth not of it. There are varieties 
of outer life, and they have nothing to do 
with this inner, spiritual cleansing which 
is to make us pure in heart, that we may 
see God. " Create in me a clean heart, O 
God, and renew a right spirit within me." 



I've found a joy in sorrow, 

A secret balm for pain, 
A beautiful to-morrow 

Of sunshine after rain. 
I've found a branch of healing 

Near every bitter spring ; 
A whispered promise stealing 

On every broken string. 

I've found a glad hosanna 

For every woe and wail, 
A handful of sweet manna 

When grapes from Eshcol fail. 
I've found a Rock of Ages 

When desert wells were dry, 
And after weary stages, 

I've found an Elim nigh, — 



40 WALKING WITH GOD. 

An Elim with its coolness, 

Its fountains and its shade ; 
A blessing in its fullness, 

When buds of promise fade ! 
O'er tears of soft contrition 

I've seen a rainbow light ; 
A glory and fruition, 

So near, — yet out of sight. 

My Saviour ! Thee possessing, 

I have the joy, the balm, 
The healing and the blessing, 

The sunshine and the psalm : 
The promise for the fearful, 

The Elim for the faint, 
The rainbow for the tearful, 

The glory for the saint. — Creudson. 



CHAPTER V. 

MEN WHO HAVE WALKED WITH GOD. 

DAVID BRAINERD went away 
from home, a very young man, 
with tender sensibilities, and strong hu- 
man sympathies and loves, to preach 
Christ Jesus to the wild Indians on the 
Forks of the Delaware. He was with- 
out a companion. Alone, yet not alone. 
He and Henry Martyn, more than other 
disciples of Christ, in their lonely labors 
have ever been my models of men whose 
lives were hid with Christ in God. If 
you have not recently read the memoirs 
of these lovely men, take an early day 
for it, and study them both, as wonderful 
examples of what this union of the be- 
liever s soul with the Master means. 
You know the complex but simple na- 



42 WALKING WITH GOD. 

ture of your own being : how that the 
spirit indwelling is the breath of the 
Maker, immortal as He who gave it, and 
susceptible of the highest and purest joy 
in its relations to Him from whom it 
came. Sin has for a season separated 
it from its source. The light and peace 
and joy that it may have by intercourse 
with Him who is the fountain of life, are 
cut off and lost when the soul lives in 
sin. But when we who sometime were 
afar off, in the cold and the dark, are ■ 
made nigh by the work which Christ has 
done for us, and sinful desires subdued 
by the Holy Spirit, we are new creatures. 
That is the language of the word of God, 
and reads to the unanointed as mere 
technical language, belonging to the 
schools of religious, thought, and not 
fitted or intended to convey any really 
practical idea to the common mind. But 
the lives of good men and good women 
are in proof that this language is intel- 



WALKING WITH GOD. 43 

ligible and to the life. I have asked you 
to read the memoirs of two young men 
of genius, culture, and opportunities. 
Either of them might have been illus- 
trious in any department of human great- 
ness. Both of them gave their youth 
and talents and learning to the service 
of Jesus Christ, and in the morning of 
their lives perished, if to fall in the ser- 
vice of God is to perish. They did not 
find in their work that kind of enjoyment 
which, but for circumstances perhaps 
beyond their control, they might have 
had. But it is no great part of a good 
mans lot to enjoy himself. To be good 
and to do good are his ends, and the 
glory is to be revealed hereafter. The 
lesson I read in their lives is, that they 
lived out of themselves, for others, with 
Christ in God. Their life was hid. The 
world about them did not see it, could 
not ; but it was a real life, that absorbed 
their ambition, tasked their energies, 



44 WALKING WITH GOD, 

warmed their sympathies, and filled up 
the measure of their days so rapidly, that 
both of them finished their course old 
men, with scarcely thirty years of life to 
grow old in. 

Around me now are many who have 
found the secret of living with Christ in 
God. They do not go on a mission to 
the heathen, to live it. They do not shut 
themselves out from the social or the 
business cares and duties of life. I think 
they are among the most active members 
of society, and they pursue the business 
of the world with an ardor and zest that 
to some may seem incompatible with the 
constant service of Christ. But they 
have received into their natures by union 
with Christ those graces which we are 
told are the fruits and proofs of this 
hidden life: mercies, kindness, humble- 
ness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, 
and, above all, love : and they are for- 
bearing and forgiving. They are cheer- 



WALKING WITH GOD. 45 

fill, and patient, and charitable, in honor 
preferring one another, and rejoicing in 
the joy of them who come into the sun- 
light of their gentle and attractive lives. 
Some of them are rich, and they use 
their wealth to gladden and refresh the 
world. Some of them have gifts to 
write, to paint, to sing, to teach ; and 
" whatsoever they do in word or deed, 
they do all in the name of the Lord 
Jesus, giving thanks to God and the 
Father by Him." 

The world does not call them saints, 
and they do not make religion repulsive 
by an affectation of austerity which they 
do not feel and will not assume. But 
the. world knows that they are living a 
life that is not its life. The very touch 
of business with a good man has the feel 
of a higher life in it than the mere pur- 
suit of gold. In social life the charm of 
beauty catches the glow of heaven, and 
the soul in union with Him who is alto- 



46 WALKING WITH GOD. 

gether lovely, makes the cheek radiant 
with love almost divine. At home, the 
spot where the graces of the spirit shine 
with their sweetest influence, this hidden 
life with Christ breathes the fragrance of 
a garden of spices, and makes the atmos- 
phere redolent of peace and love. " Ye 
have put off the old man with his deeds, 
and have put on the new man, which is 
renewed in knowledge after the image of 
Him that created him." 

A life hid with Christ in God is in- 
sensible to the fear of death. If Christ 
is safe, you are, for you are in Him. 
" This is the record, that God hath given 
to us eternal life, and this life is in his 
Son. He that hath the Son, hath life. 
These things have I written unto you, 
that ye may know that ye have eternal 
life." What is it to die, if the soul is 
already in Christ ? The life that we now 
live is by faith on the Son of God, and 
to die is but to remove the only veil be- 



WALKING WITH GOD. 47 

tween us and Him who is our life, and 
in whom we are to sleep, wake, and live 
forever. 

There are times, in the experience of 
almost every believer, when the soul is 
in sympathy with Him whose sorrow 
pressed the sweat like blood drops from 
his brow. Then the believer bears about 
in his body the dying of the Lord Jesus. 
David Brainerd and Henry Martyn had 
such hours — long, dreadful hours. So 
had the poet Cowper, melancholy to the 
verge of madness. How the holy Pay- 
son suffered ! I can cite you as long a 
list as the roll in the eleventh of Hebrews, 
of men who have been burdened in soul 
till grace seemed to fail, and philosophy 
was vain, and love itself had no balm for 
the mind in anguish. But even to them, 
all of whom suffered only because the 
body is the seat of disease, and while the 
soul is in it must be more or less under 
its dominion, even to them this precious 
4 



48 WALKING WITH GOD. 

truth came like the whispers of angels to 
the spirit's ear, saying : " He that be- 
lieveth in me, though he were dead, yet 
shall he live." 

And now, what shall I say more ? 
" This is the confidence that we have in 
Him, that if we ask anything according 
to his will, He heareth us." For this 
union He came to us, took upon Him 
our nature, prayed in the flesh that we 
might be one with Him, and then laid 
down his life that our life might be hid 
with Him in God. Now, the whole 
mystery of godliness is plain to you. 
Believe in Christ arid you are united to 
Him, one with Him : " He that believeth 
on the Son of God hath the witness in 
himself," and " he that hath the Son, 
hath life." 

Take this truth into your soul and 
be at peace. Be glad in it, if you wish 
to be glad. But any way be content, 
for "your life is hid with Christ," and 



WALKING WITH GOD. 49 

you shall be " filled with all the fullness 
of God." 



O Holy Spirit, enter in, 

Among these hearts thy work begin, 

Thy temple deign to make us ; 
Sun of the soul, Thou Light divine, 
Around and in us brightly shine, 

To strength and gladness wake us. 
Where Thou shinest Life from heaven 
There is given : 
We before Thee 
For that precious gift implore Thee. 

Left to ourselves we shall but stray ; 
O lead us on the narrow way, 

With wisest counsel guide us, 
And give us steadfastness, that we 
May henceforth truly follow Thee, 

Whatever woes betide us. 
Heal Thou gently hearts now broken, 
Give some token 
Thou art near us, 
Whom we trust to light and cheer us. 

O mighty Rock, ,0 Source of Life, 

Let thy dear Word, 'mid doubt and strife, 

Be so within us burning, 
That we be faithful unto death 



50 WALKING WITH GOD. 

In thy pure Love and holy Faith, 

From Thee true wisdom learning. 
Lord, thy graces on us shower ; 

By thy power 

Christ confessing, 
Let us win his grace and blessing. — Schirmer. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THINKING OF GOD. 

IT is a German idea, and one not 
likely to be within our experience, 
that we should never be so absorbed with 
business or any other object of desire, as 
to be unconscious of the presence of 
God ! — that we should have our thoughts 
always in God, as pervading the universe, 
dwelling in us, and we in Him, so that, 
in all our conversation and our cares, we 
shall be under the power of the truth 
that we are surrounded still with God ! 
There may be a sense in which this con- 
stant intercourse with God is possible. 
But, to obtain it, thousands have become 
hermits, and monks, and ascetics, and 
have doubtless come no nearer to realiz- 
ing it than when they lived with God in 
the world as others do. 



52 WALKING WITH GOD. 

But there is no harm, there may be 
great benefit in trying the experiment, to 
see how near you can come to keeping 
the idea always in the mind, " Thou God 
seest me," and lovest me. It is not 
likely that when the Lord God walked 
in the garden and talked with Adam as 
with a friend, that the man ceased from 
his pleasant labors which he was set to 
do. Cheerful in their pursuit and faith- 
ful to his trust, he went on dressing and 
keeping the trees and shrubs and flow- 
ers, and all the while the joy of the Lord 
was in his soul, and he communed with 
his Maker. Enoch walked with God. 
He did not hide away from men that he 
might be with God. He walked with 
Him in the every-day duties of life, and, 
when those duties were done, God took 
him. But he was no recluse. He was 
an active Christian, and in his action 
he had daily, hourly, perhaps constant 
knowledge of God. 



WALKING WITH GOD. 53 

No one thing gives the believer more 
disquietude than the intrusion of unholy- 
thoughts, and many a saint has been dis- 
couraged and sad because such thoughts 
come unbidden, and will not go when 
bidden to depart. It was Cecil's homely 
illustration that the best way to keep 
chaff out of the measure is to fill it with 
wheat. And beyond all doubt the mind 
that turns to God, when the care of life 
permits it to leave present duty, will find 
in Him so much to employ, and enter- 
tain and delight, that lower and sensual 
thoughts can hardly find a door of en- 
trance into the soul. Read the 139th 
Psalm. Commit it to memory. It will 
repay the labor, even if you have passed 
the time of life when it is easy to learn 
anything " by heart." But this is just 
the way you should learn that remark- 
able and sublime poem : get it by heart. 
You will love to repeat it as you walk by 
the way, and, in the darkness it shall 



54 WALKING WITH GOD. 

make the night light about you. Think- 
ing on Him, you will become like Him. 

"My meditations of Him shall be 
sweet," said the inspired poet, who also 
said of the word of God : " It is my med- 
itation all the day," and " I have remem- 
bered thy name in the night." 

It is no part of this teaching, if such 
familiar discourse as this may aspire to 
be counted instruction, that you are to 
devote one hour less to the active and 
social labors and pleasures of the life that 
now is. Unless, as indeed it is true of 
many, and may be of you, that you are 
now so devoted to business or pleasure 
that you do not allow time for medita- 
tion, prayer, reading, and so sacrifice 
health of soul and body on the altar of 
your own selfish desires after gold or 
earthly joy. Such devotion is idolatry. 
For all the religion you can enjoy while 
thus absorbed, you might just as well 
keep an idol in your bed-chamber and 



WALKING WITH GOD. 55 

burn a written prayer before it night and 
morning. But you are not so blinded 
and debased. Or you may be so given 
to doing good as to forget the equally 
important duty of getting good. Some 
Christians are so active, ceaseless, rest- 
less in their labors of love, driving from 
one place to another at the call of benev- 
olence, that they have no time for the 
quiet culture of their own hearts, the 
peaceful study of divine truth, and med- 
itation in secret on Him who is the soul's 
refreshment, nourishment, and life. They 
are disgusted when told that they are 
religiously dissipated ; that they are do- 
ing good work in the vineyards of others 
while their own is lying waste. You are 
not one of these, but you know them and 
sometimes envy their usefulness. They 
will have their reward, but not so great 
and bright a gift of divine regard will 
come down on their heads in the day 
when the King shall make up his jewels, 



56 WALKING WITH GOD, 

as on yours, if you are found faithful in 
every trust committed to your keeping, 
and have walked with Him day by day, 
hour after hour, doing with your might 
what your hand finds to do, and whether 
you eat or drink, work or play or pray, 
have done all to the glory of God. 

This walking with God is not a mere 
abstraction. The relation in which Jesus 
Christ in his humanity stands to our 
race, has made our intercourse with God 
easily apprehended. Christ the Son of 
God became man. He took upon Him 
our nature. He became one of us. This 
is purely a truth revealed of God, and to 
be received by faith. It is not needful 
that we understand it. But God has 
come down to men. In his Son He has 
become like unto us who are " partakers 
of the divine nature." And as God 
manifest in the flesh is the great mystery 
of godliness, so our union with Him who 
was thus manifested is the whole secret 



WALKING WITH GOD. 57 

of the Christian religion. It is our faith. 
" As we are partakers of flesh and blood, 
He also Himself likewise took part of 
the same/' And the change wrought in 
us by the Holy Spirit has brought us 
into harmony with the mind and will of 
Him who became flesh and dwelt among 
us. " He that dwelleth in love dwelleth 
in God, and God in him." As the heart 
goes out after the object of its great 
affection, so that the image of one we 
love is ever with us as a presence and 
companion, cheering us in solitude, stim- 
ulating us to duty, and filling the fullness 
of our hope of rest and joy to come, so 
the image of Him who is formed in us 
the hope of glory is before our minds 
continually, the chief among ten . thou- 
sand and the one altogether lovely. In 
the hours of business the mind often 
turns to Him, as memory in the busiest 
hour brings near an absent friend. We 
walk with Him. He bears us about 



58 WALKING WITH GOD. 

-with Him. In the excitement of pleas- 
ure, the thought of Him is sweet. And 
when we can shut the door upon the 
world, He comes in and sups with us, 
and we with Him. We meditate on 
Him in the weary watches, when He 
giveth songs in the night. We sleep on 
his breast, and wake in his arms. 

Walk with God, my dear friend. Great 
peace have they who walk with Him, 
and joy ; and, by and by, they have 
glory. In the morning, welcome Him 
with the sunbeams. Keep near Him 
while the burden and heat of the day are 
upon thee. And when the curtain of the 
evening falls around thee, his love shall 
be thy light and salvation, and by and 
by He shall take thee to Himself, and 
thou shalt walk with Him in white rai- 
ment. "Beloved, now are we the sons 
of God, and it doth not yet appear what 
we shall be ; but we know that when He 
shall appear, we shall be like Him, for 
we shall see Him as He is." 



WALKING WITH GOD. 59 

O for a heart of calm repose 

Amid the world's loud roar, 
A life that like a river flows 

Along a peaceful shore ! 

Come, Holy Spirit, still my heart 

With gentleness divine : 
Indwelling peace Thou canst impart, 

O make that blessing mine ! 

Above these scenes of storm and strife 

There spreads a region fair : 
Give me to live that higher life, 

And breathe that heavenly air ! 

Come, Holy Spirit, breathe that peace ! 

That victory make me win : 
Then shall my soul her conflict cease, 

And find a heaven within. 



CHAPTER VII. 

COMMUNION WITH GOD. 

YOU say that you cannot make this 
intercourse with God such a real 
communion and converse as it would 
seem to be in the experience of others. 
You have a vague and indefinite idea of 
enjoyment in being good and doing good, 
but you have no consciousness that the 
Infinite God is dwelling in your spirit. 
And you ask me what is meant by com- 
munion with God, and how it is to be 
found and enjoyed. 

It is not unlikely that you, with many 
others, have formed some idea of what 
ought to be your religious experience, 
and, because it is not realized in your 
daily consciousness, you are filled with 
apprehensions lest you have not been 



WALKING WITH GOD. 6 1 

received into union with God. We do 
not pretend to know how the Holy Spirit 
acts upon our spirits. Our knowledge 
of things from without comes to us 
through the senses, and we are taught 
that the truth, which we receive by hear- 
ing and seeing, is the medium through 
which God himself reaches our souls td 
make us holy. The Saviour prayed that 
this might be the way, and we have con- 
sciousness that it is the way. Doubtless 
God can, and perhaps He does, act di- 
rectly upon our spirit, so as to produce 
in us what He desires. But that is not 
the usual method of divine influence. 
The Master said to his disciples, " The 
Holy Spirit shall take of the things that 
are mine and show them unto you." 
And " all that the Father hath," he said, 
"are mine." This is certainly very in- 
telligible. The truth of God in his 
written word is the medium through 
which the Holy Spirit imparts to the be- 



62 WALKING WITH GOD. 

liever the things that he needs for the 
nourishment and joy of his soul. 

This is natural as well as spiritual. 
The words of a departed friend are 
read over and over again, and with in- 
creased enjoyment and profit. Letters 
from those we love are not useless when 
once perused. The dearer the friend, 
the more precious they are ; the more 
frequently and tenderly we read them. 
Thus we have communion with one ab- 
sent from us. Though we do not send 
back a response, the written thoughts of 
the one far away become part of our own. 
This is a very imperfect illustration of 
our intercourse with God. Imperfect, 
because there is in the reception of God's 
truth by the believer a supernatural 
power employed to make it effectual. 
The Holy Spirit takes the truth and 
applies it to the spirit of the believer, as 
no words of human love are sent home 
to the heart. " In sundry times and 



WALKING WITH GOD. 63 

divers manners," God has revealed Him- 
self to his children without the aid of his 
written word, and we do not deny that 
He sometimes speaks to them now di- 
rectly, impressing his will upon the soul, 
without the aid of words, to be read or 
heard, so that the believer knows he is 
taught of God. But the way and the 
truth and the life are through the word 
of his grace made plain to the under- 
standing by the Holy Spirit. 

You will find this communion with 
God in his word intensified in its enjoy- 
ment, according to your faith and perse- 
verance in prayer. I do not know why 
prayer is made a condition of God's 
revelation of Himself to his creatures : 
why the infinitely loving and Almighty 
Father is to be reached by the supplica- 
tion of his creatures, so that He will do 
for them what He would not from the 
fullness of his benevolent nature. He 
did not give his Son to die for man, be- 
5 



64 WALKING WITH GOD. 

cause man asked Him to. But He has 
taught us to pray, and has so established 
the relationship between us and Him, 
that our intercourse is through his word 
and our prayer. He hears our requests 
and gives us what we ask, and, in so giv- 
ing, manifests Himself unto us. This is 
proved in the same way that philosophy 
proves any theory or principle. It is not 
simply a matter of revelation. It is an 
established fact, confirmed by thousands 
of examples in history, in observation, 
and experience. Every Christian is a 
living witness to the truth that God 
answers prayer. And on the strength 
of this settled principle, of which you 
have no reason to doubt, you may go 
with freedom and confidence to God in 
prayer and tell Him all you want, with 
the assurance that He will hear and 
answer, and make Himself known to you 
as hearing and answering. 

Thus your prayer and his word are the 



WALKING WITH GOD. 6$ 

means of communion with God. You 
may study the writings of saints of other 
days, among whom may be mentioned 
such eminent instructors in the art of 
holy living as Fenelon and Thomas 
a Kempis and Baxter and Doddridge. 
They will be read with profit, when much 
that we now read more, will have been 
forgotten. They were holy men, and 
had communion with God. And they 
will help you toward holiness. But we 
are living in another day, and under 
other circumstances. They tend to the 
life of meditation and retirement. There 
is no harm, but great good, in getting 
more out of the world than we do in our 
day. But we are in the activities of a 
progressive age. Our saints are not 
hermits. The best of Christians are 
among those who do the most for God 
and man. And if they have communion 
with God, they must and will have, it 
while they imitate the Master who went 



66 WALKING WITH GOD. 

about doing good. Devotion — which in 
other days implied seclusion and fasting 
and mortification — now inspires labor 
and giving and personal effort, to make 
the world better and happier for our 
being in it. Such Christians as the 
mystical writers of earlier times would 
educate, have no standing in the Church 
militant of to-day. Their sincerity we 
do not question. But their type of piety 
is not developed by the Holy Spirit in 
the Church of our times. 

All around thee, by night and day, in 
the street and the house, in company or 
alone, is the infinite, loving Father. He 
knows all your weaknesses, your poverty 
of spirit, the barrenness of your soul, 
your coldness of love, your want of faith, 
your feeling of distance from Him, of 
isolation, separation, and non-intercourse. 
Cry out to Him ! Let the desires of thy 
heart find earnest utterance in words, 
and the very words shall inflame and 



WALKING WITH GOD. 6/ 

feed thy desires. And He who seeth 
and heareth in secret shall reward thee 
openly. He will speak to thee in the 
still, soft influence of his Spirit, bring- 
ing to thy spirit messages of grace and 
peace, and thou shalt know Him in the 
manifestations He makes of himself in 
his word. Speak to Him, and He will 
speak to thee. Be not afraid. He is 
thy Father. He is not afar off. He 
loves to converse with thee. Pour out 
thy soul before Him. Commune with 
Him, and He will with thee. 



Leave God to order all thy ways, 
And hope in Him, whate'er betide ; 

Thou'lt find Him in the evil days 
An all-sufficient strength and guide. 

Who trusts in God's unchanging love, 

Builds on the rock that naught can move. 

What can these anxious cares avail — 
These never-ceasing moans and sighs ? 

What can it help us to bewail 
Each painful moment as it flies ? 



68 WALKING WITH GOD. 

Our cross and trials do but press 
The heavier for our bitterness. 

Only your restless heart keep still, 
And wait in cheerful hope, content 

To take whate'er his gracious will, 
His all-discerning love hath sent ; 

Nor doubt our inmost wants are known 

To Him who chose us for his own. 

He knows when joyful hours are best ; 

He sends them as He sees it meet ; 
When thou hast borne its fiery test, 

And now art freed from all deceit, 
He comes to thee all unaware, 
And makes thee own his loving care. 

Nor in the heat of pain and strife, 

Think God hath cast thee off unheard, 

Nor that the man whose prosperous life 
Thou enviest is of Him preferred. 

Time passes, and much change doth bring, 

And sets a bound to everything. 

All are alike before his face ; 

'Tis easy to our God most high 
To make the rich man poor and base, 

To give the poor man wealth and joy. 
True wonders still of Him are wrought, 
Who setteth up and brings to naught. 



WALKING WITH GOD. 69 

Sing, pray, and swerve not from his ways, 

But do thine own part faithfully ; 
Trust his rich promises of grace, 

So shall it be fulfilled in thee : 
God never yet forsook at need 
The soul that trusted Him indeed. 

Newmark. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

PANTING AFTER GOD. 

IT is not well to be always meditating 
upon your own weaknesses and de- 
ficiencies and sins. Better far is it to 
turn with sorrow and shame from them, 
with holy endeavors after a better life, 
and fix the mind on heavenly and divine 
things. You have not fallen into worse 
ways than that wonderful poet of Israel, 
who has left on record his experiences in 
his fall and rising again ; and his long- 
ings after God — the pure, . holy God — 
are expressed in such terms as no other 
poet or preacher has ever been able to 
command. Years, centuries, ages wear 
away ; new scenes, new dispensations, 
new races appear ; but the strong desires 
of this weak old man are the feelings of 



WALKING WITH GOD. J I 

every heart yearning after God. Read 
with me some of his expressive lines : — 

As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, 
So panteth my soul after Thee, O God ! 

My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God : 
When shall I come and appear before God ? 

O God, Thou art my God, early will I seek Thee : 
My soul thirsteth for Thee ; my flesh longeth for 

Thee 
In a dry and thirsty land where no water is. 

My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of 

the Lord. 
My heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God. 

As a bird in the boundless atmos- 
phere, as a fish in the limitless sea, as a 
grain of sand in the great globe of earth, 
so is the soul in the midst of the infinite, 
invisible, all-surrounding and pervading 
God. I have sought to make this om- 
nipresence of God a familiar fact in your 
consciousness, that this walking with 
Him and communion with Him and 
panting after Him may have a practical 



72 WALKING WITH GOD. 

and evident meaning and purpose. To 
live in God — -to enjoy his conscious 
presence and intercourse as that of a 
visible friend whose hand is in ours, and 
whose heart throbs with ours — this is 
the privilege of every soul ; and must be, 
dear friend, yours. As the bird longs 
for the free air and dies without it ; as 
the fish is in agony when out of its 
native element, and must have the water 
or it expires ; so the soul that has been 
brought by grace into union with God, 
must dwell in Him, and, when in separa- 
tion, pants to return and enjoy his em- 
brace. 

You have tried the good there is in 
something less than God. How it has 
palled upon the taste, and failed utterly 
to fill the vast capacities of the immortal 
soul. They who live for the life that 
now is, do not find in their good things 
all the heart wants. Do not undervalue 
the gifts of God — wealth, and all that 



WALKING WITH GOD. 73 

wealth can buy ; pleasures that come to 
the soul through the eye, the ear, the 
taste ; the delights of social life, refined 
by culture, learning, beauty, grace, and 
sweetened by the charms of friendship 
and love. It is cant and sin to affect to 
despise the delights of social and domes- 
tic life, as if God were not to be enjoyed 
in the blessings with which He crowns 
our days. These are his mercies, and 
are to be received with gratitude. But 
they are not enough, and they are only 
the efflorescence of the source itself of 
infinite good. They are God's, but they 
are not God. He is in Himself wealth, 
pleasure, love ; and to long for them 
alone and not to pant after Him, is to be 
satisfied with the flower when the fruit 
is to be had, to drink the morning dew 
when the fountain of living water is at 
your feet. 

It is not needful that you deny your- 
self riches, to be enriched with all the 



74 WALKING WITH GOD, 

fullness of God ; nor that you leave your 
books, to have the knowledge which is 
life eternal ; nor to neglect your friends, 
to enjoy his loving-kindness better than 
life. Take all He gives, and rejoice. 
But the sunshine that makes every home 
an emblem of the Father's house, is the 
smile of the Lord. God dwells within 
the walls of every Christian home, and 
great peace have they who keep his law 
and walk in his ways. He is found of 
them who seek after Him, and makes 
his abode in their house and. heart. So 
it is that panting after God brings Him 
to the panting soul. It is not so with 
the deer driven far away from his resting- 
place and fountains by the dogs : hunted, 
faint, tongue-parched, ready to perish for 
thirst, he pants for the cooling waters ; 
but they are not near. His desire does 
not bring him the relief he needs. He 
may be flying farther and farther still, 
till, worn and wearied in the race, away 



WALKING WITH GOD. ?$ 

even from the hunters who sought his 
life, he sinks upon the earth and breathes 
his last gasp in vain desire for water to 
quench his thirst. You will not so pant 
and perish. Every leap you make in 
your chase after the fountain of life 
brings you nearer and still nearer to God. 
Each throb of your aching heart is felt 
in the bosom of God, as the mother 
yearns with love unutterable for the babe 
that nestles in her arms. " My flesh 
longeth for Thee." Not the soul only 
with all its faculties of intellect, not the 
spirit only with its moral powers awake 
and struggling after God ; but my flesh 
— the whole man, every fibre, sinew, 
muscle, every nerve, from the brain- 
centre to the farthest outpost of sensa- 
tion, the system universal and alive — 
longs, pants, cries out for God, for the 
living God. When shall I come and ap- 
pear before God? How good old Her- 
bert prayed : — 



j6 WALKING WITH GOD. 

Come, Lord ; my head doth burn, my heart is sick 

While Thou dost ever, ever stay : 
Thy long deferrings wound me to the quick, 
My spirit gaspeth night and day. 
O show Thyself to me, 
Or take me up to Thee ! 

O, loose this frame, this knot of man untie ! 

That my free soul may use her wing, 
Which now is pinioned with mortality 
As an entangled hampered thing : 
O show Thyself to me, 
Or take me up to Thee. 

What have I left, that I should stay and groan ? 

The most of me to heaven is fled : 
My thoughts and joys are all packed up and gone, 
And for their old acquaintance plead. 
O show Thyself .to me, 
Or take me up to Thee. 

Come, dearest Lord, pass not this holy season, 

My flesh and bones and joints do pray : 
And e'en my verse, when by the rhyme and reason 
The word is stay, says ever come. 
O show Thyself to me, 
Or take me up to Thee. 

If you have a just conception of what 
it is to be in God, you too will cry : I 



WALKING WITH GOD. *]J 

cannot live away from Thee ; O hold me, 
lead me, fold me to thy heart. I am 
weak, be Thou my strength ; I am sick, 
Thou art the health of my countenance. 
I am sinful, very ; so sinful, I fear to 
come to Thee. I would fain hide from 
thy presence ; but my soul thirsteth for 
Thee ! O show Thyself to me ; lift upon 
me the light of thy face, in Jesus Christ 
thy Son, my Saviour, the Intercessor 
for me with Thee. All else has failed. 
The world has not within itself the good 
that my poor heart wants, and breaks to 
have. Thou art my God, and Thee alone 
I seek. Whom have I in heaven but 
Thee, and there is none upon earth that 
I desire besides Thee. My flesh and my 
heart faileth, but Thou art the strength 
of my heart and my portion forever. I 
shall be satisfied when I awake with thy 
likeness. And not till then. But now, 
even into this prison of the flesh and 
sense, O come ; make Thyself known to 



78 WALKING WITH GOD. 

me, and my soul shall magnify the Lord 
and be glad in Thee exceedingly. 



My whole desire 

Doth deeply turn away 

Out of all time, unto eternal day. 

I give myself, and all I call my own, 

To Christ forever, to be his alone. 

I leave the world, 

Its wealth allures not me : 

With God alone will I contented be. 

The creature shall no longer fill my mind ; 

In the Creator what I want I find. 

Now, O my God ! 

My comfort, portion, rest ! 

Thou, none but Thou, shalt reign within my breast. 

Call me to Thee ! call me Thyself — O speak ! 

And bind my heart to Thee, whom most I seek ! 

Then let me dwell 

But as a pilgrim here : 

One to whom earth seems distant — heaven more near. 

Let this my joy, my life, my life-work, be, 

To die to self — to live, my Lord, to Thee. 

I know this road 

Through narrow straits doth wend, 

Wherein my stubborn will must stoop and bend. 



WALKING WITH GOD. ?g 

Jesus, I offer unto Thee my will ; 

Thy love can make it humble, sweet, and still. 

Thou art my King — 
My King henceforth alone ; 
And I thy servant, Lord, am all thine own. 
Give me thy strength : O ! let thy dwelling be 
In this poor heart, that pants, my Lord, for Thee ! 

Tersteegen 



CHAPTER IX. 

PEACE IN GOD. 

AND yet, after all, I hear you say that 
you have not the perfect peace 
which seems to be one of the great com- 
forts of a truly religious life. You know 
what it ought to be, and you have a vivid 
conception of the enjoyment that must be 
theirs of whom it is said, u Great peace 
have they." But you have it not, and 
would be told how to get it. 

It is well for you to keep in mind that 
many have peace without any right to it. 
The ostrich that hides his head in time 
of danger, and considers himself safe be- 
cause he does not see what is to hurt 
him, is no more foolish than you would 
be if you were at peace simply because 
you are insensible. They may be in the 



WALKING WITH GOD. 8 1 

greatest danger who are the least alive to 
the imminence of the peril. And others 
are not at peace, because they doubt the 
strength of the bridge over which they 
are passing. Nervous and timid and 
ignorant people are often afraid where 
there is no danger — their apprehensions 
being the fruit of their own imaginations. 
Now, it is not the part of wisdom to dis- 
turb the peace of any who are justly at 
ease, and it is equally wrong to encour- 
age a false and fatal security when the 
bridge is unsafe. 

But we have the means of knowing 
the nature of the structure which sus- 
tains our hopes, and it is our own fault 
if we have not all the information we 
need to enable us to understand fully 
and truly the foundations on which we 
are building for eternity. I do not know 
another subject of greater importance. 
It must press itself on every intelligent 
mind ; and one who is thoughtful and 



82 WALKING WITH GOD. 

reverent, as every immortal being should 
be, will often ask himself, " What is to be 
my hereafter ? " We take the Bible as 
our guide, and accept it as declaring all 
that man is to believe and do, that he 
may enjoy God and himself forever. To 
reason with those who do not accept this 
rule of faith and practice, brings us into 
another field, where Infidelity and Chris- 
tianity pitch their hostile tents. We take 
the system of religion as we find it in the 
Gospels, and on the strength of its doc- 
trines we rest the everlasting destinies of 
our souls. Believing that we are to be, 
and that it doth not yet appear what we 
shall be, faith in the Word opens to us 
the future, and we have the comfort of 
believing that on the conditions of the 
Gospel we shall be always in the enjoy- 
ment of God. This is our faith. And 
if you are wanting it, and are in a state 
of constant unrest and anxiety because 
you have it not, then it is well for you to 



WALKING WITH GOD. 83 

test your experiences in the crucible of 
the Gospels, and see whether your hope 
is gold or dross. 

You have felt the infinite contrast be- 
tween yourself and the holiness of God, 
and with self-condemnation have turned 
away from sin to seek after that alone 
which is well-pleasing in his sight It is 
the simplest thing in the world to say, 
" If you cherish sin with any degree of 
complacency, you cannot have peace with 
God." Light and dark may just as soon 
delight themselves in the same room at 
the same time, as for sin and peace to 
dwell in company. And if you are com- 
plaining of a want of joy in God, while 
you are hugging to your heart anything 
that is not lovely to the eye of Him who 
is the perfection of beauty, it is not need- 
ful to go further in search of the cause of 
your want of peace. But if you are dis- 
turbed by the fact that former sins have 
justly severed your relationship, and that 



84 WALKING WITH GOD. 

in spite of all you can do there is still a 
law in your heart that subjects you to the 
dominion of sin, so that when you would 
do good evil is present with you ; then 
would I turn away your eyes from this 
self-study, and ask you to take into your 
mind the central idea of the Gospel, that 
the Christ of God has made such satis- 
faction for sin that yours are forgiven : 
not for what you feel or do about them, 
but for what the One who saves has felt 
and done for you. If you hate this sin 
that rules over you, and desire to be de- 
livered from its bondage and to be con- 
formed to, the image of the heavenly, 
what you cannot do for yourself is done 
for you by another, even Christ, and by 
Him you are made at one with God. 
There is, therefore, now no condemna- 
tion. You have accepted this theory of 
pardon, peace, and eternal life, and there 
is no other on which a believer in the 
divinity of the Gospels can expect to be 



WALKING WITH GOD. 85 

saved. Taking this theory and putting 
your soul upon it, it is folly unspeakable 
to be disturbed in mind as to your future 
state. By receiving Christ as your Sav- 
iour to atone for sin, to make you at one 
with God who is your Father, you have 
been brought near unto Him, and are 
now united to Him, as the branch to the 
vine. As the child belongs to the parent, 
you are adopted into the family and have 
a right to all the privileges of the sons of 
God. 

It is not well for you to be often talk- 
ing about yourself, looking at yourself, 
making a merit of thinking yourself a 
great sinner, and magnifying your own 
faults and sins ; your want of conformity 
to the will of God ; your neglect of duty ; 
your unfruitful life ; and especially your 
want of religious enjoyment. 

Think less of what you have done, and 
more of what Christ has done. Love 
Him more and serve Him better than 



86 WALKING WITH GOD. 

you have ever done. Study his life and 
follow his example by living, not for 
yourself, but for others, trying every day, 
and every hour of every day, and each 
moment of every hour, to do something 
that shall be like what Christ would do if 
He were in your house and heart. You 
will very soon find that the sense of un- 
rest will vanish in the pursuit of the good 
and useful. You will get rest by taking 
exercise. You will renew your strength 
by walking with Christ. Your peace will 
be like a river, not a stagnant pool ; but 
flowing on, refreshing the meadows and 
making glad the city. And the peace 
that passeth all understanding shall keep 
your heart and mind. 



Commit thy way to God ; 

The weight which makes thee faint — 
Worlds are to Him no load ! 

To Him breathe thy complaint. 
He who for winds and clouds 

Maketh a pathway free, 



WALKING WITH GOD. 87 

Through wastes or hostile crowds 
Can make a way for thee. 

Hope, then, though woes be doubled, 

Hope, and be undismayed ; 
Let not thine heart be troubled, 

Nor let it be afraid. 
This prison where thou art, 

Thy God will break it soon, 
And flood with light thy heart, 

In his own blessed noon. 

Up, up, the day is breaking, 

Say to thy cares, Good-night ! 
Thy troubles from thee shaking 

Like dreams in day's fresh light. 
Thou wearest not the crown, 

Nor the best course canst tell ; 
God sitteth on the throne, 

And guideth all things well. 

Trust Him to govern, then : 

No king can rule like Him. 
How wilt thou wonder when 

Thine eyes no more see dim, 
To see those paths which vex thee, 

How wise they were and meet ; 
The works which now perplex thee 

How beautiful, complete ! 

Faithful the love thou sharest ; 
All, all is well with thee ; 



88 WALKING WITH GOD, 

The crown from hence thou bearest 

With shouts of victory. 
In thy right hand to-morrow 

Thy God shall place the palms. 
To Him who chased thy sorrow, 

How glad will be thy psalms ! 

Paul Gerhardt. 



CHAPTER X. 

SYMPATHY WITH CHRIST. 

IN all poetry and history there is no 
drama like that which is written by 
Matthew, and will be seen in living char- 
acters on the day for which all other days 
were made. When the Son of man 
shall come in his glory, and all the holy 
angels with Him, the King shall say unto 
them on his right hand, " Come ye 
blessed of my Father, inherit the king- 
dom prepared for you from the founda- 
tion of the world. ,, 

And the reason the King gives for 
this infinite gift and eternal invitation 
is founded upon the good deeds which 
the good have done to Christ in the per- 
son of his brethren. Read the several 
grounds of distinction as the King him- 
self defines them : — 



go WALKING WITH GOD. 

" I was ahungered, and ye gave me 
meat. 

" I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink. 

" I was a stranger, and ye took me in. 

" Naked, and ye clothed me. 

" I was sick, and ye visited me. 

" I was in prison, and ye came unto 



me." 



And when you tremble lest you have 
never done these acts of kindness to 
Christ, He goes on to say, " Inasmuch 
as ye have done it unto one of the least 
of these my brethren, ye have done it 



unto me." 



The sufferers here mentioned are not 
the disciples of Christ only. They may 
have been great sinners. They are 
brethren of Christ, as those whose na- 
ture He took upon Him when He became 
a man. We have not yet fully entered 
into the mystery of the incarnation, by 
which the relationship between the hu- 
man and the divine was established ; 



WALKING WITH GOD. 9 1 

our nature was exalted as his could -not 
be debased, and Christ, the Son of God, 
is not ashamed to call us sinners his 
brethren. The prisoner to whom we 
minister may be a felon justly doomed 
to die, but if we do to him for the sake 
of Christ, we do it unto Christ. Doing 
to the felon was doing what Christ did 
for us. He did not come for the right- 
eous. If in time of famine we were to 
send food to Christians only, what thanks 
would we deserve ? Do not even sin- 
ners help sinners ? It is not for us to 
stop and ask if a sufferer is a saint or 
a sinner. The greater the sinner, the 
greater the need of our pity and help. 
We want to get into living sympathy 
with Christ, and to do this we must come 
into personal contact with living suf- 
ferers. This is doing to Him what He 
did for others, and what He is doing now 
for us. He was always going about 
doing good. They brought the sick to 



9 2 



WALKING WITH GOD. 



Him, and He healed them. He stopped 
the march of sorrow to the grave, and 
gave back a dead son alive to his wid- 
owed mother. And what sympathy with 
suffering the story of Lazarus of Beth- 
any reveals ! He died for sinners, and 
therefore for sufferers. He opened his 
own heart and shed all his blood that 
the wounds of a bleeding world might 
be healed. 

But you and I never shed a drop of 
blood for Christ ! Never. 

We have wept over the story of the 
cross, as we have many a time shed 
tears over the pages of fictitious woe. 
But tears are not blood, and Christ shed 
blood. And for us to be in sympathy 
with Him we must drink of his cup and 
be baptized with his baptism. 

Our age is so commercial, and our 
religious work is done so largely by ma- 
chinery, that it is very difficult for a 
private Christian to come into personal 



WALKING WITH GOD. 93 

contact with his suffering fellow crea- 
tures, so as to do them practical good. 
We can give money, and it is our duty, 
as it should be our joy, to give money. 
There is joy in giving, but it is not glory. 
It does not fill the soul with golden light 
and peace, as if heaven had burst into 
the bosom and filled it to overflowing. 
It is noble to give, but it is Christlike 
to do and to suffer, and especially to do 
and suffer for the suffering. It is a 
blessed thing to take the money you 
have earned by toil and care, and give 
it to the poor. But it is more to take 
up your cross, and go where poverty and 
sickness, where sin and misery are hud- 
dled, and there with your own hands to 
bind up the wounds, and mingle tears 
and prayers with the sighs of the dis- 
tressed for whom the Saviour died in 
agony unspeakable. 

You need not become a monk or a 
nun. The only brotherhood or sister- 



94 WALKING WITH GOD, 

hood we want is the family of Christ, 
a fellowship that makes us all brethren 
and sisters, so that when one member 
suffers all the members suffer with it. 
But without becoming a member of any- 
other association than the Church of 
Christ, you may easily find work to do 
that will bring your soul and body into 
active and practical sympathy with those 
for whom Christ died, and whom He 
recognizes as his brethren. All works 
of mercy springing from love to Christ 
are accepted by Him. There is no merit 
in the work, as there is no merit in faith. 
But as the fruit of love it brings the 
soul into union with Him who wrought 
out salvation for us by his works, and 
owns us as co-workers with Him, and 
more than this, as not only doing for 
Him but as doing to Him when we are 
kind to those who need our sympathy 
and aid. He bore our sorrows ; let us 
bear the woes of one another. 



WALKING WITH GOD. 95 

This is at least a part of the mystery 
of God in the flesh, taking upon Him our 
nature, and becoming one with us in our 
sorrows, suffering with us and for us : 
as we suffer when the child of our affec- 
tion suffers. He is the brother of all 
who suffer : of the least of those whose 
nature Jesus shared when He was a man. 
And so the least of them is a Christ to 
you if you will do him good. 

The least ! I would not magnify the 
word. Who is the least of those whom 
Jesus pities, and who is Jesus unto us 
if we are pitiful to them ? It is a mother 
dying in a cold garret with a starving 
babe on her dry breast. It is a drunk- 
ard staggering to his family, who cower 
into corners when the savage enters. It 
is a felon in prison, clanking his chains, 
and waiting the day of his doom. It is 
a sick stranger in a hospital, friendless 
and dying. It is a diseased and dirty 
child, ready to perish for want of water 
7 



96 WALKING WITH GOD. 

and air and a mother's love. Any one 
of these is a Christ to you, if you will 
minister to him in the name and for the 
sake of Him who did more for you. 

A few days ago a lady of wealth and 
beauty and refinement, while on a mis- 
sion of mercy, found a little child ; it was 
friendless and filthy, sick, sore, and dy- 
ing. A few dollars, of which her purse 
was full, would have procured others to 
minister to its wants. But she took it 
into her carriage and carried it to her 
elegant home, and washed and clothed 
it, and laid it in her own bed, and tended 
it with her own soft hands, until death 
came, and bore its soul to Him who said, 
" Suffer little children to come unto me." 
And inasmuch as she did it unto the 
least, the most helpless little sufferer in 
the great city, a dying beggar baby, a 
waif, an outcast for whom nobody cares, 
she did it unto Christ. The person of 
Jesus was in the rags and dirt of that 



WALKING WITH GOD. 97 

dying infant, and its spirit witnesses be- 
fore the King that she loved Him. And 
when the stars are falling, and the ele- 
ments are melting with fervent heat, she 
will hear Him saying, "As you did it unto 
the least, you did it unto me." Sympa- 
thy with human suffering does not say 
to the destitute, " Be ye warmed and 
filled." Nor does it spend itself in giv- 
ing money to the society that feeds and 
clothes the poor. It does this, for these 
are blessed agencies that Christian love 
employs to seek and save that which 
was lost. But it does more. It goes 
about as Christ did. It bears the woes 
of others, as He did when his back was 
given to the smiters, and his cheeks to 
them that plucked off the hair. I hear 
you say, " I know that I love Him, but 
what can I do for Him ? I would die for 
Him, but O, tell me how to live for Him ! " 
Well, dear friend, I tell you to begin 
in your own heart and house, and let the 



98 WALKING WITH GOD. 

love of Christ dwell in you richly, con- 
straining you to kindness, gentleness, 
tenderness, toward the least and hum- 
blest under your roof, or who cross your 
path in the walks of daily life. 

And if you have the strength, and 
nearer duties do not hinder, go out into 
the lanes and garrets and cellars where 
Want and Misery, with their twin sisters, 
Sin and Shame, hide away from the sight 
even of human pity and help. Put your 
hand into the hand of Poverty, Disease, 
or wan Despair, and lift it up into the 
sunlight of hope and peace and joy. Go 
lay your warm Jieart by the heart that 
is bleeding and breaking. With the soft, 
sweet caress of Christian love you may 
soothe the agony, and pour in the oil 
and wine of hope and peace. You may 
go and sit all night by the bedside of the 
poor sufferer, ministering to the constant 
wants of one who shifts from side to side 
by turns, racked with pains and tortured 



WALKING WITH GOD. 99 

with fears. By such practical charities 
that cost some self-sacrifice, bearing a 
dim and distant resemblance to that 
which Jesus made, when He left the 
glory of heaven, and on wings of love 
came down to die for you, will you taste 
the blessedness of them who have part 
in the sufferings of Christ. 

And when He comes again in the 
glory of his Father, you shall hear Him 
say, " Come, ye blessed of my Father, 
inherit the kingdom prepared for you 
from the foundation of the world." 



A POOR wayfaring man of grief 

Hath often crossed me on my way, 
Who sued so humbly for relief, 

That I could never answer " Nay ; " 
I had not power to ask his name, 
Whither he went, or whence he came, 
Yet was there something in his eye 
That won my love, I knew not why. 

Once, when my scanty meal was spread, 
He entered — not a word he spake ; 



IOO WALKING WITH GOD. 

Just perishing for want of bread ; 

I gave him all ; he blessed it, brake, 
And ate, — but gave me part again ; 
Mine was an angel's portion then, 
For while I fed with eager haste, 
That crust was manna to my taste. 

I spied him where a fountain burst 

Clear from the rock ; his strength was gone ; 

The heedless water mocked his thirst, 
He heard it, saw it hurrying on ; 

I ran to raise the sufferer up ; 

Thrice from the stream he drained my cup, 

Dipped, and returned it running o'er ; 

I drank, and never thirsted more. 

'Twas night ; the floods were out ; it blew 

A winter hurricane aloof ; 
I heard his voice abroad, and flew 

To bid him welcome to my roof; 
I warmed, I clothed, I cheered my guest, 
Laid him on my own couch to rest ; 
Then made the hearth my bed, and seemed 
In Eden's garden while I dreamed. 

Stripped, wounded, beaten nigh to death, 
I found him by the highway-side ; 

I roused his pulse, brought back his breath, 
Revived his spirit, and supplied 

Wine, oil, refreshment ; he was healed : 

I had myself a wound concealed ; 



WALKING WITH GOD. 10 1 

But from that hour forgot the smart, 
And Peace bound up my broken heart. 

In prison I saw him next, condemned 
To meet a traitor's doom at morn ; 

The tide of lying tongues I stemmed, 

And honored him midst shame and scorn ; 

My friendship's utmost zeal to try, 

He asked if I for him would die ; 

The flesh was weak, my blood ran chill, 

But the free spirit cried, " I will ! " 

Then in a moment to my view, 

The Stranger darted from disguise ; 

The tokens in his hands I knew, 
My Saviour stood before mine eyes. 

He spake ; and my poor name he named : 

" Of me thou hast not been ashamed ; 

These deeds shall thy memorial be ; 

Fear not, thou didst them unto me." 

Montgomery. 



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